Thursday, 22 August 2013

A few weeks ago I bought some lovely red polka dot jersey from my favourite fabric shop in Norwich.

It is just too nice to make a plain t-shirt top, so I flicked through all my old Knipmode magazines and found the perfect pattern in the June 2005 issue.

The top is pictured in the top right hand corner.

So I got stitching and came up with this

It was very easy to sew indeed!

Everything fitted together perfectly ... I love it when that happens (it doesn't seem to happen that often!)

The only downside is that it is a little on the short side - which is unusual as usually I have to make things a little shorter! I am glad I am not 1.80m tall. which is the size the pattern goes up to.

It looks ok with this high waisted skirt though but the skirt is a lot too tight on me, so I will have to find a way of enlarging it somehow.

This is the third time I have made this dress style and needed to make it a little bit different.

I like the look of flat piping opposed to corded on the edges of a dress but this posed a little problem for me as I couldn't butt the presser foot up against the cord to sew a straight line. First, I tried a normal foot but couldn't do it very straight and then used my blind hem foot (pictured below)

It butts up against the edge of the piping to give a perfectly straight stitching line.

Next I pinned the facing over this and turned the whole piece over.

Sorry for the bad photo, but I think you can just see the stitching line to the right of the foot; I used this as a guide and stitched slightly to the left to join the front, piping and facing together.

So when I turned everything to the right side my piping was perfectly level all round.